Where I tell microbes to go conjugate themselves.

Tag: bacteria

We were not ready for you. Not sure we ever would have been. We were looking to isolate bacteriophages that prey on gram negative bacteria like you. Instead we found these slower growing plaques on lawns of Pseudomonas that was you[10]. So what if you can bore into other bacteria, use their macromolecules and finally … More Tiny prey stalking murderers!

You evolved this cute little system to measure local cell density involving a small extracellular molecule that all individuals in a population produce and sense. While we higher eukaryotes go around being all greedy and selfish, you figured out a way to communicate and cooperate with your fellow prokaryotes. Don’t look so delighted with yourself. … More Bacteria of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your energy!

Even though you look more like the Micrococcus who you were named for in 1956, your 16S ribosomal sequences beg to differ and place you closer to Thermus. So we even gave you your own genus in the 80s: Deinococcus[2] and made you the first card-carrying member of i-can-survive-high-amounts-of-radiation club[7]. But that wasn’t enough for … More Too insecure to stay with the name Micrococ(k)us?

So you can apparently substitute arsenic for phosphorous[11]. Yes, we can’t even tell the difference between the two. In our defence, they are both elements of Group 15 and are only very slightly different in electronegativity and size (~0.02 nm). Our enzymes work hard to harvest the little phosphorous we can find and in their … More Stop showing off and just use the more stable backbone!